Worst charting song by a Britpop era band

[kidsick5000]

The Day We Caught The Train - Ocean Colour Scene

Yes. Absolutely. There's no better example of the worst of Britpop than these fake, well-worn hand-lathed artisnal 'authentic' tunes

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

All I remember about Ocean Colour Scene is that the guitarist had a very large head, and continued to have a large head when he started playing in Paul Wellers band.

[Catalogue Trousers]

No mention of Terrorvision yet.

Tequila was, is and evermore shall remain a festering pile of shit for gormless cunts. Happy now?

[purlieu]

'Being Brave' by Menswear is a bit of a guilty pleasure tbh. Not that it's good or anything, it's just yer bog standard Britpop-era 'big ballad with an expensive string section slapped over the top', but I've always quite liked it. I don't know why.

My equivalent is 'Chasing Rainbows' by Shed Seven, a band I normally loathe. But there's something really lovely about that song.

'Being Brave' was always ruined for me by half of the chorus being 'ba ba ba bah'. I did quite like 'We Love You' back in the day, although listening back I'm struggling a bit. The Beach Boys vibe is maybe slightly less typical Britpop, and it's still staggeringly better than 'Daydreamer', which makes Elastica sound like a band who'd never even heard of Wire in comparison.

[Dr Rock]

Well I listened the the 'lost' Menswear album and I couldn't hear any country-rock. Mostly your usual indie ballads with orchestral flourishes to make it a bit more 'epic.' Let down by just-about-adequate vocals and not very good lyrics. One song very Oasis-ey. Okay I suppose but would never have been my thing.

[PaulTMA]

Pop will eat itself. The last time I heard Mr Shillingford was on this.



Yes, that's a KPM Britpop library album.

The track is called Smashing Time

https://www.emipm.com/en/browse/labels/KPM/958

but the whole album is fun for spotting which band each track is trying to ape¹.

_{1. generally Blur n Oasis}

This is enormously comical to my ears.  What is the purpose of this release?  'Yellow Dress' is a fantastic misunderstanding of Pulp.  'Smashing Time' is so on-the-nose in Britpop terms, it makes Thurman's 'English Tea' sound like Slowdive.

[the]

This is enormously comical to my ears.  What is the purpose of this release?

The same as as all library music, to make something evocative of a style/mood which is easy to select and cheap to licence for incidental use in other media.

I think it's great, I love hearing things boiled down to a formula and deftly executed, it's a precision insult.

but the whole album is fun for spotting which band each track is trying to ape¹.

_{1. generally Blur n Oasis}

It seems there's a bit of Badly Drawn Boy and Dodgy in there as well.

Let It Roll for next year's UK Eurovision entry BTW

[hummingofevil]

They were great, though. Their lack of chart success doesn't reflect the quality of their music. This is a thread about Britpop chancers and also-rans.

When Patio Song was released Mark and Lard were doing the breakfast show and made it single of the week. They implored everyone to go out and buy it and make it the first welsh language song (well kinda) in top 40. It entered charts at 41. Oooh.

[hummingofevil]

This is absolute dogshit that is kinda made even worse by the fact that they are so confident about it not being shit. That chorus is utter, utter ear cancer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MplsuvEzBU

I just found this by Smaller. It was Digsy's band as in Digsy's Dinner. It is fine. It is of interest as I own the actual Fender Jag you can see in this video. I bought it off them a few days after this was filmed on the Big Breakfast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoDEOY5vcDI

[Phil_A]

This is absolute dogshit that is kinda made even worse by the fact that they are so confident about it not being shit. That chorus is utter, utter ear cancer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MplsuvEzBU

I just found this by Smaller. It was Digsy's band as in Digsy's Dinner. It is fine. It is of interest as I own the actual Fender Jag you can see in this video. I bought it off them a few days after this was filmed on the Big Breakfast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoDEOY5vcDI

Haha, that riff on the first one is just Smoke On The Water played really badly, isn't it?

Love that sticker proudly advertising YELLOW VINYL.

[Neomod]

'Smashing Time' is so on-the-nose in Britpop terms, it makes Thurman's 'English Tea' sound like Slowdive.

But drum machine and synth introduce this cheeky indie track, featuring a quirky 'mockney' male lead vocal and sparse verses with sporadic electric guitars; opens into choruses with thick guitars and keys and male 'la la' backing vocals!

It seems there's a bit of Badly Drawn Boy and Dodgy in there as well.

As well as Republica on Another Dimension.

The Menswear of the litter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru03MDjmnws

[hummingofevil]

Oh this is terrible. Like genuinely awful. Not the jaunty Britpop sound but that slight return to a groovier dance band sound that reappeared in 1997 and was awful. 18 Wheeler - Prozac Beats. It's a truely dreadful piece of music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhZ2Ih0300c

It really is all terrible but skip to 2:40 if you want the really, really bad stuff.

[the]

This is absolute dogshit that is kinda made even worse by the fact that they are so confident about it not being shit. That chorus is utter, utter ear cancer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MplsuvEzBU

"Holll-i-dayyy... at White Trash Rock!..."

[hummingofevil]

I'm kinda struggling here. I am thinking of those bands that had god awful bland nothing guitar Britpop sound but a singer with a slightly goth look. Spiky hair, eyeliner and looked like they were in music for the underage girls. Gakked up to fuck and moved to Camden types. I am actually struggling to find Britpop that is bad enough. I was a proper Britpoper but I loathe it all now listening back.

[imitationleather]

I wonder what the Menswe@r revival of 2013-5 was like. I really, really do.

I had a copy of Nuisance but in my defence I was only nine years old at the time.

[Neomod]

I think I bought this from the Camden Record and Tape Exchange 50p bin.

Played it once

Straight in the Neomod Towers bin.

Kinky Machine Shockaholic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv34D7HOTdw

I blame both Liam and Damon for that winey vocal tick that infested so much britpop landfill.

[Mr Banlon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUE4oDunYkc

[Chriddof]

Kinky Machine Shockaholic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv34D7HOTdw

Memes4Lyfe
8 months ago (edited)
The bassist is my dad, I'm not kidding

Kinky Machine later turned into Rialto, whose one hit was Monday Morning 5:19. (That's not the record cover in the video.) Lyrics seem to be the product of someone catastrophizing at the very least. The string section in this was overseen by Anne Dudley of The Art Of Noise, I believe. Of particular interest to members of this forum is the B-side Little Comedian, which given the lyrics, music scene, and time period suggest it may have been about a certain someone that this forum talks a lot about.

As for Smaller, I remember Brett Anderson laughing at them in some magazine's singles review because they were called Smaller. Actually, talking about Brett Anderson, can anyone put me straight on this following thing: back around 1996 / 97 there was a brief bit of excitement around an American all-girl rock band called The Donnas, who were meant to be like a 90s teen Ramones, only not as good. Steven Wells went mental over them, as I recall. The band members were all called Donna, with a single letter to differentiate them - Donna A, Donna S, Donna C, etc...

It was repeatedly claimed in multiple publications that the real name of one of the girls (the lead singer?) was, improbably, Brett Anderson. (As in, she had somehow been given the exact same name at birth of the Suede singer.) I can't believe this was actually true, and given that the claim appeared everywhere at the time leads me to believe it was the result of some sort of odd music press in-joke. Can anyone confirm either way?

[Chriddof]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUE4oDunYkc

Listening to that song in 2019 feels wrong. Regardless of the quality of it, it's such a cheerful track that it's almost perverse to listen to it these days.

[kalowski]

I just found this by Smaller. It was Digsy's band as in Digsy's Dinner. It is fine.

Like those cloners from Kamino

[Phil_A]

Kinky Machine later turned into Rialto, whose one hit was Monday Morning 5:19. (That's not the record cover in the video.) Lyrics seem to be the product of someone catastrophizing at the very least. The string section in this was overseen by Anne Dudley of The Art Of Noise, I believe. Of particular interest to members of this forum is the B-side Little Comedian, which given the lyrics, music scene, and time period suggest it may have been about a certain someone that this forum talks a lot about.

As for Smaller, I remember Brett Anderson laughing at them in some magazine's singles review because they were called Smaller. Actually, talking about Brett Anderson, can anyone put me straight on this following thing: back around 1996 / 97 there was a brief bit of excitement around an American all-girl rock band called The Donnas, who were meant to be like a 90s teen Ramones, only not as good. Steven Wells went mental over them, as I recall. The band members were all called Donna, with a single letter to differentiate them - Donna A, Donna S, Donna C, etc...

It was repeatedly claimed in multiple publications that the real name of one of the girls (the lead singer?) was, improbably, Brett Anderson. (As in, she had somehow been given the exact same name at birth of the Suede singer.) I can't believe this was actually true, and given that the claim appeared everywhere at the time leads me to believe it was the result of some sort of odd music press in-joke. Can anyone confirm either way?

Donna A of the Donnas was indeed named Brett Anderson by birth. There's at least four Bretts walking around according to Allmusic, including All Girl Punk Band Brett, Country Rock Brett and Australian Death Metal Brett.

IMO Rialto's best single was Untouchable, surprised they barely cracked the top 20 as they seemed ubiquitous for a very short period of time. And apparently there was a second album in 2001 which I don't recall even hearing a flicker of a mention of at the time, perhaps too preoccupied with WORLD-CHANGING EVENTS.

This cover just screams "Can't be bothered," doesn't it? Given their haircuts I'm betting the picture was taken at the height of their 1997 rise to middling chart success.

[purlieu]

I just found this by Smaller. It was Digsy's band as in Digsy's Dinner. It is fine. It is of interest as I own the actual Fender Jag you can see in this video. I bought it off them a few days after this was filmed on the Big Breakfast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoDEOY5vcDI

Great Tune !!! Smaller should of been Bigger !!!! Hahahah

Great.

Kinky Machine Shockaholic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv34D7HOTdw

That's my least favourite so far. Absolutely obnoxious. Rialto were at least a few rungs up the ladder from this.

How about reggae-britpop quartet Audioweb, covering The Clash's Bankrobber? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmMpOnFFqhY

[idunnosomename]

Like those cloners from Kamino

bringing up the 1950s space dinner in attack of the clones in a thread about shitty britpop is in danger of causing a quantum singularity of rubbishness

[buzby]

I just found this by Smaller. It was Digsy's band as in Digsy's Dinner. It is fine. It is of interest as I own the actual Fender Jag you can see in this video. I bought it off them a few days after this was filmed on the Big Breakfast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoDEOY5vcDI

Ah, Digsy of Liverpool new wave also-rans Cook Da Books 'fame'.

[dex]

Bennet I'm sure of it from memory were a parody band (they were on Roadrunner Records FFS). Mama's gone to Iceland stopped an Indie night dead in its tracks when my mate requested it be played even back then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtAunxgEP_k

[Quote]

Ah, Digsy of Liverpool new wave also-rans Cook Da Books 'fame'.

Incredibly, there's actually a documentary about Cook Da Books, a band so niche there's probably former members who don't even recall them.

Which makes you think that somewhere at this very moment the reformed Catch are being filmed reminiscing about the time they appeared on The Paul Ross Show to promote 'Bingo'. "It was mid-1997, everything just seemed to be falling into place...."

[MidnightShambler]

Ah, Digsy of Liverpool new wave also-rans Cook Da Books 'fame'.

Cook Da Books were quite big in France, bizarrely. My mate, who used to put on the New Brighton Rhythm And Blues Festival (amongst other things, like being the writer of Another Brick In The Wall*) was either their manager or PR director, I can't remember now. He was involved in some way anyway. It all predictably went tits up, like everything he's involved in. They were making a comeback a few years ago but nothing came of it.

The first gig I ever went to, Cast at the Royal Court, Smaller were the opening act, followed by Northern Uproar. I met Paul Gallagher, who was absolutely fucking shitfaced, in the bar with Digsy after they finished their set and they complemented me on my Ben Sherman, which was nice. Anyway, at the time everybody thought they were fucking great, it's only years later that it doesn't really stand up.

That's the thing with most movements, if you were involved you have a blind spot. Some of the opinions on this thread are mad though, how the fuck was The Day We Caught The Train a britpop nadir? It's not even close to being a bad song. It's played a lot even now but, come on, you not liking it and it being an objectively bad song are two different things.


* my mate was putting on some festival somewhere and it was quite a big deal at the time, although I can't remember what it was, was years ago when I saw this correspondence. Anyway, he was in talks to have Roger Waters appear in some capacity, either giving a talk or performing. So they'd been faxing each other back and forth to iron out the details and Roger started to get a bit uppity and condescending about certain conditions.

My mate replied to one of his missives 'listen Roger, we don't need any education in how to put this on and we certainly don't need your sarcasm either'. I've actually seen this fax, so he's telling the truth about that but whether it was the germination for those lines or not we'll never know. Although the story always comes out whenever he's had a drink as if it's an accepted fact. Small world eh?

[Dr Rock]

The Day We Caught The Train was Weller Dad Rock poison.

[Quote]

There's a young-ish Jake Bugg lookalike busker/occasional pub performer near me who performs an all-acoustic set of Dad Rock classics like Day We Caught The Train, Wonderwall, Don't Look Back In Anger, The Drugs Don't Work, You Do Something To Me etc whilst the Britpop dads bellow and sway along drunkenly.

It's horrible.

EDIT: whilst hammered I have to admit that I was once party to that drunken bellowing. I'm not proud.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I find it bizarre to think that, for all the dad rock pisstaking, Weller was only in his mid 30s in the Britpop years. He's only five years older than Jarvis Cocker.